115376-in-game-cinematics-feedback
Content ---- not sure if actually Jarrod... I'll bite though.... 1. More cinematics for characters. Every 25 levels beginning at level 1 it would be cool to see a class-specific cinematic. Play up the classes a bit. Perhaps include an optional cinematic for each class at the creation screen. 2. My favorite are the Drusera wold story quest cinematics. These do a great job explaining the whole Entity vs Drusera story that involves the whole planet of Nexus is amazing. The involvement of the Light Spire and the Strain are immensely entertaining. 3. never played exile, no comment. 4. Every 10 levels or so, that usually correlates with a massive piece of in-game events. | |} ---- ---- Doubt this is cereal... But all the LOPP quests in Whitevale... especially the wedding. Reason Lopps Rule. Also they need an animation for the quest where you kill the moles in Malgrave was it... for no reason. | |} ---- ---- ---- Maybe he is really a carbine spy whose real purpose is to work out just how vitriolic (this is totally a word fo shuh) the responses were. .... Also any quests that involve Lopps and Shinies needs to have at least 2-10 minute animation. | |} ---- ---- If you click his profile it says Carbine Studios Staff ^_^ | |} ---- ---- Hey, you've got a tag! I wasn't going to respond until then. Not sure why not, trolls don't ask about cinematics, usually. I like the cinematics I've seen (they were all very well done). There are, however, very few of them. In addition, they almost seem to occur at random. Such as, I'll be questing in Algoroc, I will play through the entire Gallow storyline (the lynchpin of the zone), get to the Eldan digsite (with its initial robot epicness), then, suddenly, the cutscene will show up during the augmentation break. That's kind of a random time for a cinematic. More short ones once you get to towns or some such would be nice, things to show "you're at a new quest hub". I actually liked the one entering Blighthaven, when you get Mr. Narrator giving you his awesomesauce speech over a short zone cinematic. More of those would be nice. | |} ---- ---- Cinematics on new areas would be brilliant. I already loved those zone intros spoken by the narrator - having a cinematic (like a fly-over over the map) during this intro would be cool. Regarding the world story - i was a little disappointed that the initial world story along with the cinematics was (technically) over before we entered the phage labs. I think the whole phage labs storyline could have some more cinematics (there's currently like 3 short ones, right? Vorion, when you face the entity and when you've finally killed the mech with Drusera's powers). A few more wouldn't hurt, since the labs seem to be an important part of the world story if i'm not mistaken. | |} ---- ---- I have combined these two questions because I'd like to address this in more of a 'what works and what didn't' sort of way. Firstly, I'd like to say that I'd like to see more cinematics for main quest storylines with major faction characters involved. I'd also like to see more zone introduction cinematics, not the interrupting kind that show a panning overview, but like... to use an example as Dom, when you first go to Wilderrun and talk to Toric- the Toric conversation being a cinematic. Now to get into that "what works" part- An example of something that didn't work as it stands as a cinematic (I will be using low level examples, but will spoiler them anyway), from the Northern Wilds: When Deadeye's wife dies, the ship explosion is very ineffective. Firstly it doesn't even feature her going into the ship. Then it goes on to show the explosion from an impersonal and rather boring viewpoint. To make it even worse, once I exited out the action of the cinematic still played in the game world- and this was a FAR FAR superior form of it, because you could run up to the ship and watch it from a far more personal and action packed viewpoint. Does that mean watching action play out in the game world is always superior? No. Does it mean this specific instance it shouldn't be a cinematic? No. What it means is the current cinematic doesn't do anything for impact, and comes off as lazy and boring. Generally things that work show action up close and personal, or show characters up close and personal- they make you feel the moment that much more vibrantly. An example of something that didn't work because it WAS NOT a cinematic, from Deradune: Generally, all the main quests involving Lex, but especially the END of his arc in Deradune. When he comes out of stealth and executes Arkos, the impact of the moment is pretty much lost by having it happen in the game world. The scene could be made so much more effective by having a cinematic that got up close and personal with the characters. And it could be used to show Lex being more physically intimidating to the player character, instead of just standing there. No clue, I haven't played Exile much at all. As often as needed or even possible for main quest storylines. But there is a qualifier here- I don't want my "gameplay interrupted" at all. I want the cinematics to be connected to NPCs or in 'safe places.' One of the most annoying things that has occurred to me in the game was having a fight interrupted by the Blighthaven cinematic- if you want zone overview cinematics like that, make sure they're either connected to an NPC that can be activated or in a location where you're likely not fighting mobs. - - With those questions answered, I'd like to mention a few more things about cinematics. 1. Audio desyncing with visuals in cinematics. I'm uncertain what causes this, but it seems especially prevalent, and get progressively worse the longer the servers are from a maintenance. At least that's what seems to cause it from my monitoring of it through the introductory cinematics. I'm uncertain if it has something to do with my computer settings, as I tried reinstalling and many other things to see if they were causing it. But it seems to be server based from my observations, and generally disappears the day of a maintenance. I could be off, but I'd like to see if whatever is causing it could be fixed. 2. The ability to replay cinematics if I so wish. I like to review story content sometimes, and it'd be quite nice to be able to return to a zone and see the cinematics again from some kind of viewing console. It would be doubly nice to be able to review all the main quest storyline dialogue from said viewing console, as well. 3. A text warning in a quest dialog that a cinematic will fire when I pick it. Something along the lines of {"I've been told you need help here." (Play Cinematic)} instead of just {"I've been told you need help here."}. I personally like to know when cinematics are going to happen. This could also be used to skip cinematics, for the people that don't like them, by having an option like {"I've been told you need help here." (Skip Cinematic)}. 4. The ability to play the Introductory pre-rendered game movies from the main menu. The one that plays once when you start the game the first time and then never again, and the faction introductions when you first create a character. | |} ---- ---- I second these last two points. I think point 3 could be added to the records room i nthe main cities where all the story zone summaries are located. | |} ---- ---- 1) Any time something happens that advances the story line or character progression. Make me feel like I'm achieving something. Help me feel the progression from being a nobody to an important hero. The last cut scene with the entity was completely underwhelming considering its the "ending". 2) None. They never felt like my character was truly involved with what was going on in the story. Maybe give my toon some lines. 3) No clue, have mostly played Dominion. 4) Every major progression step would be nice. Levels 1, 15, 25, 35, 45, and 50. | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- I'm not far enough along in the story to answer #1-3 with any accuracy (although I am still very fond of the cinematic where Artemis Zin fails to capture the Elder Cube). But I have enough experience with cinematics in other multi-player games to have a very strong opinion about #4. Whatever else you do, if you put cinematics in repeatable group-only content, you need to follow two rules or the screaming matches will be epic. (1) Keep them short. 15 seconds is almost certainly too long. 10 seconds may actually be pushing it. And (2) do not even allow opt-out unless everyone in the instance has seen the cinematic. (If you don't want to add a separate tracking bit for that, tie it to whatever is the first achievement after the cinematic.) In City of Heroes' "Incarnate" raids, there was one cut scene per raid. Most of them were mercifully short. People who were repeating this content every day got really tired of those cinematics ... but they weren't bloodthirsty about it. If anything, they became pop-culture jokes within the community, mocking something about each one. If memory serves, they eventually made some of them them auto-skip (or manually skippable? I forget) if everybody had seen them. But nobody got angry at first-timers who hadn't seen it yet, so everybody got to see it at least once without getting punished for it. By contrast, Defiance has skippable cut-scenes in all of its original repeatable instances. Even if you haven't seen the cut-scenes, people are so bored with them that if you're new to the game and haven't seen them, you will still be kicked off of must pick-up group teams if the cut-scene plays and they figure out you're the one who didn't press escape. The anger of people who waited a long time to get into an instance only to be kicked after the first cut-scene actually managed to exceed the anger of the bored instance-grinders who really couldn't stand to see that cut-scene even one more time. It was (and is) a major source of toxic behavior. So, yeah, let me say it again: as short as possible, and each one not able to be skipped if there's anybody who hasn't seen it. Spare yourself and the community from a lot of rage. | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- If im not mistaken infamous, all cutscenes in the game happen within the game world. So everyone can skip them, but the events still occur. Personally i think this is idea, becuase your given back control of your character so you dont feel hamstrung by the cinematic screen your friends is still enjoying. | |} ---- Your post echos one of mine perfectly. I think we need to get the wildstar promotional cinematics into the game. The protostar housing movie on wildstar's website would be a crazy fun ingame intro to the corporation and housing in general. Plus a lot of the really important personalities are featured in the movies too, which would go a long way to establishing an emotional connection with them in game. Plus more voice overs of the main characters, as they have crazy personalities that dont come through in text. Also, Protostar are all clones of one dude who genetically modified his people into one giant corporation! How fun/cool of an idea. I accept i need to dig into the lore to find this stuff out, and feel rewarded when i do. But wholly crap is that kind of stuff too fun to leave for just lore hounds, and gives the world way to much context not to include in the main story arches. | |} ---- ---- 1. As an introduction to each new zone that you don't walk into (I was dissapointed when I flew to Southern grimvault and ended up on a crash site with no explanation) 2. All that gives a bit more story told, like in the exile starting zone when the story is driven by a cinematic where the rescue ship is shot down is a geat example of a good cinematic in my view. 3. No comment, mainly play on dominion. I would say it is of less importance if it is very balanced, it is all about enriching the story and providing a background. 4. Many of the quests are chains, and you don't want to be interrupted when in the questingzone, but and ending cinematic after a story is always welcome. Thanks for listening. | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ^ Yes, South grimvault felt very rushed and unfinished. It was very illogical for malgrave to end where it did and left me honestly feeling like i shouldnt be in South Grimvault yet. It needs to be made more clear the quest that takes you there is the end of the zone malgrave. | |} ---- ---- ---- 1) More cinematics revolving around the Torine...displaced, beset by the Strain, and a steadily dwindling population. In some respects the Torine remind me of Dune's Fremen. 2) Favorite cinematics are those involving Drusera and the Entity. 3) Cannot answer, do not play Dominion. Too much like a religious version of Omni-Tek. 4) Variable. Short cinematics during story arcs could mean more put in to space out events...long cinematics to tell a bit of story, set the mood, etc. Again, varies on length and story arc. | |} ---- Thanks for the update. Are there any plans to impliment current out of game cinematics, in game. Or at least to repurpose them in some way. I would still REALLY love to see the protostar housing commercial make its way into the game :) | |} ----